


Burn It Down

by 2am_limbo



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Is Trying His Best, Adam Parrish Likes Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish is Bad at Feelings, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Comfort/Angst, Different getting together, Getting Together, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Like... his name is said once, M/M, Minor Joseph Kavinsky/Ronan Lynch, Pre-Relationship, Ronan Lynch Angst, Ronan Lynch Being an Asshole, Ronan Lynch Has Feelings, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Ronan Lynch-centric, Ronan's Subconscious is Punishing Him, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Soft Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, Super Minor Rovinsky, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, ronan dreams
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:28:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2am_limbo/pseuds/2am_limbo
Summary: “Why not me?” Ronan interrupted. Adam was taken aback for a second and peered into Ronan’s eyes. Adam had never seen him like this, this unguarded and fragile. Ronan worked so hard to hide that part of himself, to appear as if he doesn’t care about anyone or anything, and yet here they were, Ronan with his glassy eyes, flushed, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes and woodsmoke, and then Adam, wanting Ronan so bad that it hurt like fuck, but he couldn’t let himself want it because Adam Parrish breaks everything he touches.
Relationships: Joseph Kavinsky/Ronan Lynch, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 13
Kudos: 123





	1. Burn It Down

**Author's Note:**

> ***Trigger Warning***  
> Beginning in Chapter 2, self-injury and implied/referenced suicide is a MAJOR factor. Not for the whole fic, but Chapter 2 is full of it. Please do not read if it is triggering for you.
> 
> I have bipolar II among some other things, and as a mental health advocate, sometimes I get these ideas on how to articulate how a certain sensation or experience feels to hopefully help others see that they're not alone in feeling what they feel.
> 
> Ronan Lynch's mental health is something I wish Maggie would have gone into a bit deeper.

Adam had done his best to wait up for Ronan at Monmouth, but instead, he fell asleep somewhere around 1:30 in the morning. It was a particularly bad day for Ronan, he knew. Declan had texted Adam that morning to ask if he would please look after him, especially since Gansey was out of town because today was the anniversary of the day Ronan found his father murdered.

Around 3:00 in the morning, Ronan stumbled into Monmouth loudly as he bumped into door frames and corners of tables. Adam startled awake when he heard Ronan curse at a floor lamp as it tilted and bumped against the wall before it landed back on its base. He glared at the lamp as if it were an enemy, and then Adam sat upright on the couch to call for him.

"Ronan?" Adam said sleepily in the dark, "Where've you been? I was worried.”

"Out," Ronan snapped, and at that, Adam switched on the side lamp. Ronan squinted in the sudden brightness, and when he fully opened his eyes Adam stood there and eyed the dark marks planted across his pale neck. Due to Ronan's inebriation, his reflexes were slower than normal, and so he had no choice but to turn his head after Adam took hold of his chin to look into his eyes. Clearly, he was drunk out of his mind, but Ronan also had the most expressive, beautiful eyes of anyone he had ever seen, and as expected, he could see the pain there. Not only pain but anguish.

"Were you with Kavinsky?" Adam asked as worry seeped into his voice. "Did you drive like this?" 

Ronan's eyes narrowed again and turned into a glare, immediately defensive once again.

"What do you care? _You_ don't want me," Ronan spat, and his head felt like it may or may not have spun a bit as he swayed on his feet. Without realizing what was happening, Ronan looked down, confused, when he felt Adam’s warm, calloused hands on a forearm and an elbow as he stumbled to the side far enough from the wall that he would have hit the floor if Adam hadn’t have caught him. Ronan didn’t seem to care, though, his eyes stayed glued to Adam’s hands on his skin.

“Jesus, Ronan, how much did you _drink_ ,” Ronan heard Adam’s voice, but all that registered in Ronan’s foggy brain was Adam’s skin touching his, coming home to find Adam sleeping on Gansey’s and his couch, Adam’s disheveled hair and that crease between his brow when he was worried or stressed. “Are you _high, too_?”

Ronan knew that he put that crease there on Adam’s handsome face, and he wanted to punch something. He wanted to punch something and get in bed and curl into a ball and never move again, but Christ knows he could never pull that off with his insomnia, Gansey, and Adam around.

“Why?” Ronan whispered then as he finally tore his eyes away from where Adam’s fingers were wrapped around his forearm, cool and soothing against his almost feverish skin.

“Because you can barely stand--”

“Why not me?” Ronan interrupted. Adam was taken aback for a second and peered into Ronan’s eyes. Adam had never seen him like this, this unguarded and fragile. Ronan worked so hard to hide that part of himself, to appear as if he doesn’t care about anyone or anything, and yet here they were, Ronan with his glassy eyes, flushed, reeking of alcohol and cigarettes and woodsmoke, and then Adam, wanting Ronan so bad that it hurt like fuck, but he couldn’t let himself want it because Adam Parrish breaks everything he touches.

But what if what Adam wanted was already broken, in its own way? What would that mean for Adam? Adam opened his mouth to respond but nothing came out, and so Ronan turned away to stumble to his bedroom and tried to keep his balance with his hand against the wall as he went to find his way.

“Go back to sleep, Parrish,” Adam heard Ronan mumble as he closed his bedroom door.

* * *

Not too long later, both boys drifted off to sleep in their own separate parts of Monmouth, Ronan because of liquor, cigarettes, and whatever drug Kavinsky gave him, and then Adam from over-exhaustion. Adam heard a scuffling and the sounds of something thumping against a wall. Adam cursed under his breath. The _one_ night he got to actually sleep and not have to wake up early…

Adam rolled off the couch as he forgot for a moment that he wasn’t in his own bed, and walked over to Ronan’s bedroom door and listened. Adam sucked in a deep breath and opened the bedroom door to find that some light from somewhere outside gently illuminated a couple of small spaces in his bedroom. To Adam's surprise, the room was pretty well-kept except for several empty liquor bottles near the side of the bed and dirty clothes piled up at the foot of the bed on the floor.

Adam's eyes scanned the room and found Ronan flat on his back on top of the bed with his headphones on and dreamed up barbed wire coiled around his neck. The palms of his hands were bleeding from having them against the barbs as he tried to pull the wire enough so that it wouldn't press hard enough to his throat to cause too much damage, but it seemed to move of its own accord. 

Adam rushed over to examine the situation, gracelessly sat down on the side of the bed, and tried to help Ronan sit up a bit by the shoulders so that he could look for the end of the wire to start unraveling it from Ronan’s neck, but there was none. It was like a permanent deadly choker, and that terrified Adam even more.

“Shh, stop moving, Ronan,” Adam said as he leaned in closer to his chest and neck to try to examine the back, careful not to cut himself in the process. “Hang on, I have an idea,” and Adam quickly left the room.

Adam returned a moment later with a pair of wire cutters from Gansey’s craft tools that he used for his miniature Henrietta. He knew that they weren’t made for something like this, but Adam was hopeful that a dreamed object was an exception. As Adam cut and sawed at the wire, all he heard was _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ as his handling caused hisses of pain from Ronan, but Adam wasn’t able to work at it any other way.

Finally, _finally_ , Adam was able to break the barbed wire free from Ronan’s neck, and Ronan immediately flipped to his side to cough and gag and suck in deep breaths. It was terrifying, watching the wire move on its own. It hadn’t been choking Ronan yet, it pulsated, almost, squeezed in and pressed, and then released, only to start all over, but Adam could sense that it was working its way up to it.

Adam said nothing as he watched Ronan struggle to calm himself, and Adam himself almost felt like choking, too, when he realized that Ronan’s subconscious created this, just like his subconscious created those night horrors that almost killed him before. It also occurred to Adam then that Ronan was punishing himself for something, and that he probably wasn’t even aware of how severe things had gotten.

“Ronan,” Adam whispered as Ronan’s breathing finally settled. Ronan sat up then next to Adam and looked down at his trembling hands that were covered in blood, and said nothing.

“Come here,” Adam said quietly and guided him up with a hand on his back, and Ronan complied without a word, and led him to the bathroom. Adam turned on the sink and waited for the water to warm as he kept his other hand on Ronan’s arm. He suspected that it might help Ronan stay grounded, but if not, it at least helped _him_ stay grounded.

Once the water warmed, Adam guided Ronan’s hands to run under the water. Adam soaped his own hands and used them to gently wash Ronan’s. When they were done, Adam pulled out the first aid kit from beneath the sink and sat Ronan down on the toilet seat. He bandaged Ronan’s still shaking hands, and when he was done he looked up to Ronan’s neck and stood. He soaked a warm rag and began to dab at the small punctures around Ronan’s neck and covered each of them with antibacterial cream.

When Adam was done, he took Ronan’s face in his hands, and smoothed over his jawline with his thumbs, and noticed how his neck already began to bruise. He lifted Ronan’s face to look at him. After a moment of gazing at each other -- Ronan’s eyes showed shame and fear, Adam’s eyes surprisingly calm and collected -- Adam said, “You’re amazing.” Ronan’s brows narrowed in confusion, still said nothing, and looked away.

After a minute of obvious deliberation, Ronan wrapped his arms around Adam’s waist from where he sat and placed his cheek to his stomach. Adam froze for a second, and Ronan interpreted that as disinterest and began to move away, but Adam caught him in time as he wrapped an arm around his shoulders and caressed Ronan’s head with his other hand before he let it rest to cup the back of Ronan’s neck.

Something changed between the two of them then, shifted. Adam could feel it in Ronan, how he let his guard down for Adam, how he took off that abrasive, rude, uncaring mask, and the gratefulness and longing that emanated from him seeped into Adam while they touched like this. Adam wondered if Ronan felt it, too.

“Hey,” Adam said gently, hopefulness in his tone. Ronan lifted his head and looked at Adam but left his chin to rest on his stomach, not wanting to break contact. Adam didn’t follow up with anything for a moment, and he had to repeatedly tell himself _open your mouth, open your mouth, open your goddamn mouth, Parrish_ before finally, his jaws obeyed and he found himself speaking.

“I do want you,” Adam said quietly after a deep inhale and exhale, all nerves. “I just push it all to the back of my mind because I’m… Scared.” When Adam said _scared_ , it felt like it, the word itself. He said the word hesitantly, almost like a question, like a fear that he was fearful, like he didn’t want to believe it.

"Of me?" Ronan asked, his voice hoarse. These were the first words out of his mouth since he woke.

"No, not you. Just… everything. Wanting you. Or anybody, for that matter. Wanting anything. Things never work out for me, that's just how it is, you’ve seen that. I'll ruin everything we have." Adam expected Ronan to close himself off again, back to the Ronan that the rest of the world saw, but he didn’t. He looked at Adam, and he thought, and he continued to look at Adam. Damn Ronan and those beautiful piercing eyes.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of silence, Ronan lifted his head and sat back away from Adam, and the words that came out of his mouth immediately wrecked any sort of Parrish Logic that he had in his head.

“What if we have right now needs to be ruined?”


	2. A Quiet Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gansey wasn’t sure what to do, and as much as he hated to do so, he called Declan after Ronan had locked himself in his room and began throwing and shattering everything within reach until things suddenly quieted. Declan later found Ronan unresponsive on the floor next to his bed with an empty bottle of whiskey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: This chapter is about depressive ideation and self-injury. It does NOT go into the actual acts of self-injury, only the thought processes.  
> ____  
> I'm pretty nervous to post this, to be honest, as it is very personal for me. As I've mentioned several times before both on here and on tumblr, I am a huge mental health advocate, so I feel it is necessary and helpful to share your own story with others. While this is fan fiction, I have always felt most connected to Ronan and understood his character the best, and his experience here is what actually happened to me years ago when I started first trying different medications.
> 
> I feel like some neurotypical people read personal accounts and things like this and think that it sounds ridiculous and dramatic, and can't possibly be true... It really is, though. I hope you all like this, though, and that it resonates somewhere.

Ronan laid on his back across his unmade bed with his head hung over the side. He enjoyed the sensation of the rush of blood to his head. It was familiar, almost. As his thoughts churned through his head, he turned his head this way and that, admiring how the familiar shadows and silhouettes became unfamiliar, morphing into something hazy and fuzzy, like black television static. He looked over at Chainsaw as she bathed her feathers. He looked away. He felt ashamed for these thoughts with her even in the room.

The truth of it was, though, he didn't even know what these thoughts _were_. They were there, but they weren't. A thought would form, but before he could get a grasp on it, it was gone with only a dreadful, unknown feeling in its wake. His mind was blank but not blank. It was so full of everything, the entire world, an entire collective emotion of billions of people, all in his head. There was so much of it there, too much caring, too much misery, too much loneliness, that it was blank. But it _hurt_. It hurt so fucking bad. How can something so blank hurt this bad? Even hollow things hurt, though, Ronan mused. He wondered if this was what people meant when they said medication made their head too foggy. 

Ronan huffed at himself in amusement. _Funny_ , he thought, _I feel like a goddamn philosopher_. He could hear Declan talking to Gansey and Adam beyond his bedroom door. He couldn't make out what was being said, but he could imagine. He could imagine Declan's tone, that icy look in his eye that would sometimes briefly flash into something _feeling_ before dissipating just as fast, the whole goddamn self-portrait that emanated loathing and pity and exhaustion, and he knew that all Declan wanted to do was rid himself of his younger brother. Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't want to rid themselves of a brother or a friend who drank too much and swore too much and was reckless with his life every single day only so that he could feel _less_. He would never be able to explain that to anyone. Not in a way that would matter. People took one look at Ronan and immediately thought he was nothing worth saving, with his grungy appearance, his dark and intense, yet enthralling tattoo, the way he spoke, his attitude. Pretty much everything that made up this post-Niall Lynch version of Ronan was unwanted. 

He thought about Kavinsky and reached up to smooth his fingers over the day-old cigarette burn on his right shoulder. He wondered why Gansey still wanted him around or allowed him to stay. He wondered how Gansey or Declan would react if they learned of how Ronan spent his time with Kavinsky and their past times. The excessive drinking and drugs, the excessive drinking _with_ drugs, the racing, the impulsive sex in the back of a cold Mitsubishi, the sudden sting or burn as Kavinsky placed his cigarette or small blade to Ronan's skin, Kavinsky's hand around his throat. Kavinsky always seemed to know how much Ronan had going on inside of his head and knew how Ronan could be distracted. Ronan hated him.

There was a voice in the back of Ronan's head. It wasn't an actual voice, not like what you read about, but rather a thought _with_ a voice, a passive one. Ronan watched as the moonlight reflected off of Chainsaw's talons. It made them look shiny and sharp and dangerous, and in the back of his mind another voice of Ronan's, his subconscious, perhaps, understood Ronan's line of sight and said _hey, Gansey has that straight-edge shaving kit in the bathroom_. Ronan found this curious and compelling, and without question, he got up to walk to the bathroom. He didn't bother to try to be quiet, he did whatever the fuck he wanted. He heard Declan and Gansey pause and then get softer when they heard his bedroom door open, and Adam sat there, completely out of his element, maybe. He looked down at his hands. Maybe not out of his element, but too much _in_ it.

He only absentmindedly cracked the bathroom door behind himself as he rummaged through the cabinet beneath the sink to find Gansey's straight-edge razor. His brain felt slightly baffled, in a way, over why he was doing this, but he felt like he had to. This mysterious urge in his head that was able to voice what it needed sounded and felt a lot like Ronan, but a sadder Ronan, more docile. It felt desperate and agonized and fearful, and he felt as if he didn't follow through with this, that he would burst with the pain of it all, through every pore and vein and crevice. He buzzed with it. Ronan wondered if anyone else had ever felt this sad and wounded before. 

Maybe there was something wrong with him, some kind of defect, something other than what that doctor called bipolar type one. Ronan didn't think that something so complex and conflicting and agonizing could all be summed up by only one simple title. He unzipped Gansey's kit and pocketed the razor. He knew cognitively that he should feel guilty or something equally bad, but he really couldn't muster it. 

When Ronan turned and opened the door, Adam was there.

"Just wanted to get a drink," Adam said quietly as he nodded towards the mini-fridge. Ronan could tell Adam was lying. Adam eyed him carefully with an exhausted look, but something about that look from Adam made him feel _something_. Not quite guilt or shame, Ronan wasn't sure what it was, but it was something that told him to fight it all.

Ronan could hear everything now, he was hyper-aware of everything within his surroundings. Ronan could hear Declan talking to Gansey, and Gansey quietly responding. Words like _doctor_ and _bipolar_ and _psychosis_ , _concerned_ and _impulsivity_ , and Ronan wanted to punch something and collapse from the weight of it all at one time. They were such heavy words.

Ronan didn't understand how this could all happen so fast. He felt okay yesterday until he didn't. Ronan was nowhere to be found when Gansey had gotten up to get ready for school. He had gone out for a drive several hours earlier, and so Gansey left alone, unable to try to talk Ronan into going with him. When Gansey got home that afternoon after dropping Adam off, he found Ronan asleep in a cocoon of blankets in Gansey’s bed. 

Ronan’s face was red and flushed as if he had been crying, and his sweatshirt hood was up and covered his head. Near his hand on the mattress was a picture of Niall and Aurora in a tight embrace against a wooden fence somewhere along Skyline Drive, the backdrop nothing but burgundy, gold, and pumpkin-colored leaves. The love between the two of them was palpable, and he remembered how Ronan used to admire it when he thought no one was looking. Clutched in his hand, though, was a fuschia and silver chenille scarf that he remembered Aurora loved to wear. The dreamed scarf was even more beautiful than the original, and even standing near it, it _felt_ like Aurora, all light and peace and endearing. Gansey had called Ronan’s name, and as soon as his eyes opened and focused, he saw the chenille scarf in his hand that had been brought back from an earlier dream, and immediately dropped it as if it burned, and he began to cry.

Gansey wasn’t sure what to do, and as much as he hated to do so, he called Declan after Ronan had locked himself in his room and began throwing and shattering everything within reach until things suddenly quieted. Declan later found Ronan unresponsive on the floor next to his bed with an empty bottle of whiskey.

Declan had told the doctor that evening at the hospital before the doctor's request that Declan leaves the room, that Ronan would get depressed as an adolescent, but Ronan had no memory of that. Apparently, that was a symptom of it all, too. So now Ronan was a Dreamer _and_ crazy, and if he wasn't already alone before, he definitely was now.

Ronan couldn’t move, and Adam was looking at him strangely. The world around him sounded as if he was sinking in the ocean. His vision wavered like ocean waves, too, but his vision cleared when he felt something warm wrap around his forearm.

“Ronan, breath,” and Ronan breathed. It wasn’t steady and calm but strangled and stabbing back to back to back over and over again a mile a minute, like his heart, was going to pound right out of his body.

“Adam,” Ronan gasped as his other arm shot up so that he could claw at his chest. “I can’t--”

Adam swiftly and quietly closed the bathroom door and sat Ronan down on the closed toilet.

Ronan squeezed his eyes closed as he struggled to breathe, and suddenly he felt Adam’s abdomen against his knees as he gently took one of Ronan’s hands against his heart and placed his own over Ronan’s.

“Ronan,” Adam said quietly. He could feel the manic pounding in Ronan’s chest, and Adam had to actively control his own breathing to not succumb to his worry.

“Feel that?” Ronan nodded several times quickly, desperately. “Focus on that, my breathing.”

Adam took a deep, deep breath in and held it for a couple of seconds before exhaling. He repeated this a few more times until Ronan was capable of beginning to mimic his patterns

“Good, keep it up,” Adam encouraged. After about 15 minutes of doing this, Adam began to worry that Gansey and Declan would come looking for him. Ronan had begun to improve, but not quite enough to hide the situation if they came looking.

“What’s wrong with me,” Ronan croaked.

“You’re having a panic attack,” Adam answered coolly as if this were any other day.

“But what’s wrong with me?”

When Ronan’s voice last hit Adam’s ear, he almost let out his own pained choke. He had never seen Ronan like this, ever, and it scared the shit out of him. Adam looked up to Ronan’s face to see if any of his normal color had returned, and he was surprised to see Ronan’s eyes opened and watching.

“You’re just sick right now, Ronan. There’s nothing _wrong_ with you,” Adam stood then and grabbed Ronan’s hand for him to follow. “Come on.”

Ronan stood up then as Adam began to turn his back, and gave a sharp hiss of pain as the straight-edge razor sliced through his flannel pajama pants pocket. He snapped his mouth closed before Adam turned around to check on him. So _there_ was the guilt or something like it.

“What’s wrong?” Ronan only shook his head. As Adam began to turn back around to lead him out of the bathroom by his hand, he caught sight of the growing dark stain as it seeped through Ronan’s light grey flannel pants.

“Ronan, what the fuck is that?”

“What is what?” Roan rasped as he felt the panic begin to rise again in his chest.

“Don’t fuck around with me,” Adam’s voice was sharp now, and he pinned him with a dark stare, his eyes blown wide. When Ronan refused to respond, Adam pushed him against the wall and pinned him with a forearm over his chest so that he could examine his pockets. Ronan didn’t even bother struggling at that point. Maybe he deserved what he got.

Adam gave a small hiss of pain as well as he pulled his hand out of Ronan’s pocket along with the blade. It didn’t seem to register with Adam that he was bleeding from his blind reach into Ronan’s pocket, and all Ronan heard was shouting in his ears, _what were you going to do, Ronan?_ and louder, _what were you going to DO_ , he felt pushed against the wall again, a weak shove to a shoulder, another shove to his chest, _what the fuck were you going to do!_ Declan and Gansey ran into the bathroom as Adam grew angrier, and they found him turned away from Ronan with his hands tightly wound in his hair as he tried his best to calm himself.

“What the fuck, Ronan,” Adam quietly repeated as he paced in the small space. He finally sat himself down on the toilet seat where Ronan was only a moment ago, “what the fuck, _why_.”

“What is going on?” Declan asked loudly as he observed the scene. Gansey and Declan weren’t prepared for Adam’s sudden burst of anger as he stood up and threw the blade in the sink. It bounced before sliding back down towards the drain.

“He had a fucking _razorblade_ in his fucking _pocket_ , that’s what!”

The silence was deafening. Everything was deafening. Gansey and Declan stood there. Gansey, at a loss of what to say or do, wanted to fix everything. Declan, at a loss, because he didn't know where to start. Declan thought he had done the right thing by talking Ronan into seeing a professional about his declining mental health. He knew that his brother would never agree to do something that he didn't want to do, he pleaded for Gansey and Matthew and Adam, and then he pleaded for their mother and father, and that's what did it. That's what sealed the deal. _It runs in the family, Ronan, but you know they couldn't bear you living like this, especially mom_. Declan had expected Ronan to spit out a _fuck you_ as he stormed off, but instead, Ronan surprised him when his eyes reflected something he couldn’t read, and his shoulders softened.

"It's not what you think," Ronan finally whispered, desperate. There was that guilt that had been absent.

"So you weren't trying to kill yourself?" Adam snapped.

"No," Ronan whispered again. "I just…" Ronan let out a deep exhale as he looked around and finally looked up to look at Declan. Declan was trying hard to hide his concern and to mask his emotion, but it wasn’t working. For the first time since Ronan was a child, he looked at Declan, really looked at his older brother, with a look that said _help, I’m sorry_. 

“I can’t explain it,” Ronan settled on saying because he really couldn't.

“Then try,” Adam said hard and even but much quieter. Ronan’s shoulders slumped as he still stood against the wall from where Adam shoved him, and he looked up to the ceiling.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” he said again. Ronan thought about how quickly and easily Adam could slip on that hard mask that he always did when asked about new bruises, and he tried to channel that to cope. When he leveled a look back down to where the light switch was, he lifted his arm to rest his elbow on his other arm crossed over his chest and began chewing on his leather bracelets. So much for channeling. Maybe he was just broken. He didn’t feel like the new Ronan he had invented since his father’s death, and maybe that was part of the point of this whole thing. It seemed like only yesterday that he had said _what if what we have right now needs to be ruined_ , but it was a week ago, and a huge lump formed in his throat, and he thought he would be sick for a second. He quickly reached forward to open the mini-fridge to grab an ice cube to place on the back of his neck to push the bile down that was flooding his mouth. His mind repeated Adam’s voice, _Ronan, breath_. Declan recognized that ice cube trick from when they were kids. Their mother used to do that when they were sick, it worked every time.

"The idea just felt like it could help," Ronan offered. He wasn't sure if that made sense.

"Help with what?" Adam’s anger seemed to dissipate rather quickly the longer he watched Ronan, and now he just looked tired and pained. Ronan clenched his jaw until it ached, and finally, without warning, he took two steps forward in the small space and wrapped his arms around Adam. While Adam was taken by surprise, he didn't hesitate this time and instead wrapped his arms around Ronan tightly with a hand cupped around the back of his neck.

Adam looked at Gansey and Declan from over Ronan's shoulder. Gansey had tears in his eyes, and Declan hadn't moved an inch except he had placed his hands in his pockets.

Adam closed his eyes then and slid his hand up to the back of Ronan's head. As he guided it down to his shoulder, he quietly said "talk to me, Ronan, please," and even quieter, he whispered, "I won't tell them anything other than what they absolutely need to know to help you, I promise."

Ronan was trembling, and he realized that the feeling of Adam's warmth pressed against his chest was oddly soothing, but Adam could feel the quaking in his chest.

"It's just too much. I can't keep it all in. I thought…" Ronan took in a deep shuddering breath. "I thought that maybe if I could cut myself, or something, that it would give me something else to focus on instead of inside. I thought it would be better than going to get high and drunk with Kavinsky, or out racing in the rain."

As Ronan quietly struggled to explain, Adam mouthed the word _go_ to Declan and Gansey, which they obeyed, Declan more hesitant than Gansey.

Once they were out of earshot, Adam spoke a little louder and cupped the back of Ronan's neck again. He traced back and forth over the soft skin there with his thumb, and for a fleeting moment, Adam realized how easy it was for him to be like this with Ronan, and he closed his eyes. This was no time for reflection.

"What is it you need a distraction from?"

But Ronan had stopped responding. He was spent.

"Can I stay with you tonight?" Adam asked instead. Ronan lifted his head then and looked at Adam. His eyes were red and glassy like he had been crying without any tears and simply looked at Adam, admired him.

Later that night as Adam laid pressed up against Ronan's back, a firm grasp around his middle, Adam thought _I could get used to this_. The press of Ronan close, the steadiness of his breathing, his warmth, the smell of cedarwood.

"Ronan," Adam whispered, his lips almost close enough to press to the back of Ronan's neck. He felt Ronan shift to pay attention, and Adam could vaguely see him blink as he waited for him to continue.

"I'm worried about you," Adam continued, and he hoped to God that this was okay. There was something about late, late nights with Ronan that always made him feel a little braver, Ronan a little calmer.

"I'm fine now," Ronan answered automatically as he slipped back into the role of the Ronan Lynch he created not so long ago, "Sorry I scared you".

Adam propped himself up on an elbow to lean more towards Ronan to peer down at him. _Braver_ , still.

"Don't do that," Adam said.

"Do what?"

"Hide."

Adam half expected to see Ronan's signature smirk with _you're a good one to talk, Parrish_ , but Ronan said nothing and turned his face back towards the pillow and away from Adam's gaze.

"I feel better when you're around," Ronan mumbled almost inaudibly, but Adam caught it. "Less overwhelmed," he added, a little stronger. Ronan could still feel Adam's eyes on the back of his head, and he let out a deep and shuddering breath.

As Ronan exhaled, Adam grabbed Ronan's shoulder to guide him onto his back to look up at Adam. Ronan looked up at him with his piercing blue eyes, hauntingly bright, and with trembling hands, Adam cupped each side of Ronan's face and gently ran his thumbs beneath his eyes where tears had been earlier.

Adam examined his face, and when he was satisfied that Ronan didn't appear to be in the same mindset as earlier, he stilled his hands and leaned down to place a gentle kiss on Ronan's forehead. Adam immediately felt some of Ronan's tension melt away from beneath him, and when Adam saw that Ronan had closed his eyes, he placed another gentle kiss on Ronan's lips. When Adam pulled back, Ronan's full attention was fixed on Adam. His eyes were wide and full of so many things that Adam couldn't place them all. They looked desperate and hungry, and Ronan was so still as if he might shatter any illusion that he may have just conjured up.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of hesitation, Ronan responded as he wrapped a hand around the back of Adam's neck and dragged him down for a much more powerful and intense kiss. This kind of kiss was nothing short of what Adam would have expected from Ronan Lynch. Desperate and reckless and wild yet adoring and cherishing at the same time.

Adam broke away and placed his forehead against Ronan's. He closed his eyes and tried to calm his breathing. He could kiss Ronan forever, and what happened today with Ronan terrified the shit out of him. Adam had suddenly felt desperate when he saw Ronan there in the bathroom, caught with that razor blade. Regardless of Ronan's intentions, something in Adam broke, and it finally hit him like a brick wall that the possibility of losing Ronan was very much real, and he could lose him without him ever knowing how Adam felt.

Sure, knowing Ronan and his normal past time activities, the threat of death or injury to him was very real, but he had never _felt_ it before, it was only something that was _known_. It was never palpable. Before Ronan only played with fire, always right on the brink, teetering on the edge, but it had never been like this.

"I need you to be okay," Adam whispered into the darkness with his eyes still closed. "I need you to know," Adam didn't finish his thought, and Ronan said nothing. Ronan held on to Adam's forearms desperately as Adam hovered over him. "Help me understand?" Adam settled on a question instead. He lifted his head then and looked at Ronan. There wasn't any hesitation written on his face, but he was looking up towards the ceiling. Adam could feel Ronan's chest begin to rise and fall more quickly now, but not from their kiss this time.

"I know it's terrifying. That's how I felt when I knew I finally needed to tell someone about the abu-- my dad," Adam cleared his throat and continued. "I know it isn't quite the same thing, but it's similar."

Ronan met Adam's eyes then but not for long. He shrugged and lifted his hands to cover his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"I'm just," Ronan's voice shook. He cleared his throat in hopes that Adam didn't notice. "I'm feeling too fucking much. I don't know how to handle it. I tried this medication because of Declan, what he said, but I don't want it."

Adam immediately bristled. "What did Declan say?"

"That, uh," Ronan cleared his throat again and slid his hands up to rest at the crown of his head with his fingers laced together as he tried his best to exude calm. "That our parents, especially mom, wouldn't want to see me like this. It's like…" Ronan shook his head.

"I don't know how to explain it so that you'll understand when I don't even understand it."

"How about starting with how you ended up in the bathroom with the razor," Adam tried his best to keep his tone even and calm so that he didn't scare Ronan, and he hoped his voice didn't waver.

"I was just fucking laying here," Ronan said with a shrug. "All of these things going through my mind, and I could hear Declan talking, and I could imagine Gansey's face, and I knew you were there, and I felt guilty, even just laying there. There was this sudden voice," Ronan couldn't stop talking now that he has started. "No, not like _that_ ," he added when Adam must have made a face when Ronan mentioned "a voice".

"It wasn't a voice like that. It was like a sudden idea that suddenly appeared in the back of my fucking head, reminded me that Gansey had that shaving kit, and it felt like a solution."

Adam listened intently. He was doing his best to understand. He understood self-hatred and guilt and shame, but he was having a hard time understanding this sort of thought process. If he could understand Cabeswater and its magic, though, he could certainly understand its creator's non-magic self as well.

"I wasn't trying to kill myself. Just the idea of temporary pain, I guess, seemed… settling."

"Okay," Adam said as he slid back down onto his side from above Ronan. Ronan frowned as he looked over at Adam and turned on his side as well to face him. As Ronan turned, he was face to face with Adam, almost touching, and Adam didn't back away.

"So this doctor Declan took you to, what did he think?"

"Bipolar," Ronan deadpanned. "Type I," he continued, "a classic case," Ronan said this last part in a very serious manner as he mimicked the psychiatrist. Adam couldn't help but smirk a little.

"My _impulsivity is astounding_ ," he added when he saw Adam's little half-smile at his mockery.

"Do you think there's any truth to it?" Adam asked. Ronan looked back at him. More than anything, Ronan wanted to wrap his arms around Adam's waist and pull him closer, to breathe in the scent of him, to trace his fingers along Adam's suntanned skin and protruding hip bones. Instead of responding, Ronan pressed his forehead to Adam's and closed his eyes. The two of them fell asleep like that, eventually entwined together. Legs tangled, a tanned strong arm wrapped around the middle of a black sweatshirt-clad body, a buzzed cut head tucked under the other boy's chin.

All of this was what Declan saw when he poked his head in to check on his brother. Before closing the bedroom door again, Declan felt gratitude for Adam and wished that Ronan would let Declan take care of him, too, like he had promised their father years ago.


	3. Chapter 3

Ronan slowly opened his eyes as shades of red and pink began to seep through his crooked blinds. As his vision focused, he took in the view before him, only inches away. Adam's beautiful face, his tanned skin, the light dusting of freckles across his nose, his long, light lashes, and sharp cheekbones. Adam's light brown hair was sticking up at his hairline from where he and Ronan hadn't lost contact throughout the night.

"Is this real?" Ronan whispered, ever so quietly. Ronan wasn't sure if he had spoken that out loud.

Adam hummed in response as he slowly became more aware of his surroundings. For a moment, Ronan was terrified that Adam would open his eyes and come to his senses. That he would wake up and realize where he was, regret being here with Ronan at all.

Instead, though, Adam's eyes fluttered opened and he blinked at Ronan. For a split second, Ronan didn't breathe, but then Adam smiled sleepily at him, and Ronan melted. 

Adam closed his eyes again and said, "I know I have morning breath and everything, but," Adam reopened his eyes and peered at Ronan with sleepy, hopeful eyes, "can I kiss you?"

Ronan's mouth opened slightly in surprise and he nodded, still unsure if he was dreaming, and God was Ronan relieved that the morning didn’t start with _how are you feeling_ or _are you okay_ as it would have with Gansey or Declan. Adam knew him well enough to not do that. The two of them only needed to tilt their heads slightly to meet each other's lips, and Ronan exhaled contentedly into Adam.

"You're not dreaming, Ronan," Adam said, and Ronan raised an eyebrow at Adam's apparent mind-reading ability. He had called him _Ronan_ and not _Lynch_ , and for some reason, this made Ronan's heart flutter.

"Let's go do something today, get you out of here for a while," Adam added. Ronan would follow Adam to hell and back.

* * *

"Shut up, Lynch," Adam said as he handed the barista his cash for the coffee. Ronan grimaced as he put his wallet back in his pocket.

They sat at a tiny table in the corner of the coffee shop looking out onto the bustling street, and Ronan watched Adam with a raised eyebrow as he poured sugar packet after sugar packet into his coffee. How this boy could tolerate so much sugar, Ronan would never know.

"I realized last night," Adam began shakily as he paid intense attention to the liquid in his mug, "that it was a very… real possibility that you could be gone one day, or I could be, and…" Adam struggled to articulate what he was trying to say.

"I've always known you to be impulsive and reckless from day one, so it never seemed like a tangible thing, until yesterday. And I realized that if something happened to you, that you would never know how I felt."

Ronan simply blinked at Adam with his hands in his lap and back against the chair, which made Adam squirm. This whole thing went a lot smoother when rehearsed in his head.

Adam cleared his throat, "You’re not making this easy for me, ya know," Adam grimaced. Ronan simply raised an eyebrow.

"I can't read youre fucking mind, Parrish," he huffed.

"Oh, _please_ , you know damn well…" Adam snapped with a small quirk of his mouth

"Yeah, well, you know what, how about I--" Ronan was quick with a quip, but--

"I love you," Adam blurted out as he interrupted their bickering. Adam snapped his mouth shut.

Ronan, however, was blank as he stared at Adam, well after he had finished talking. For several minutes, the two of them said nothing. Finally, Adam could no longer stand it.

"You don't have to say anything back, Ronan, it's okay if you don't feel that way about me, I just wanted…" Adam trailed off as he noticed Ronan's expression morph into a grimace, his brow drawn together. Adam was confused. Wasn't Ronan hoping for this realization to occur at some point?

Without a word, Ronan stood forcefully enough to make the chair skid backward and tip before falling back onto its four legs. As the ruckus drew attention to their table in the coffee shop, Ronan stormed off, the bells on the door hit against the wood hard enough that the ropes that hung them wrapped around the valence rod. Everyone turned to look at Adam in astonishment.

"Sorry," he mumbled as he walked out of the coffee shop, embarrassed. When Adam reached the bench outside of the coffee shop, both cups in hand, Ronan was nowhere to be found. Adam sighed and sat down. He sat Ronan’s cup down next to him on the bench and drew his legs up beneath him like a pretzel, and with his warm cup in the open space of his lap, he looked down to pay special attention to his frayed pullover sleeve that he had stretched down to his knuckles. 

Adam frowned as he noticed some oil leftover beneath a couple of nails that he had missed when desperately scrubbing his hands after work yesterday, and suddenly he was so disgusted with himself that he couldn’t stand it. He thought that Ronan would have been pleased to have Adam finally realize that he did want him, without fear or hesitation as Adam had previously mentioned, and he had seemed content when Adam stayed with him last night, but obviously, Adam had done something wrong between last night and today to make Ronan change his mind. Adam dug his nails into the palm of his hand.

Two blocks away, Ronan came to a sudden stop when he realized what he had done. Several pedestrians voiced their irritation, but when they saw his glare, they closed their mouths and stepped around. Adam would think that he rejected him, and after all of this time of pining, he had no doubt that Adam thought it was his own fault, that he wasn’t good enough, and that was the last thing he wanted Adam to think. He didn’t want Adam to want him only because he was afraid or because he felt sorry for him. He wanted Adam to _want_ him. Ronan turned around to walk back towards the coffee shop.

When Adam noticed a shadow looming over him, he looked up to find Ronan standing there. The look on Adam’s face as he peered up made Ronan’s chest tighten and ache, and he wanted nothing more than to cup his face in his hands and lean down to kiss him. Instead, Adam held out Ronan’s lukewarm coffee, a peace offering. Ronan reached out and took his cup along with Adam’s and sat them on the ground before he grabbed Adam’s hand to pull him up off the bench. Once he was standing, Ronan pulled Adam in for a hug and held him tightly, one arm around his back, the other around his shoulders… And Adam held him back with a hand on the back of his neck.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Ronan said at Adam’s hearing ear, and he felt the tension melt away from Adam’s shoulders. “I just don’t want you to say those things just because you feel sorry for me or some shit.”

“I didn’t say those things _because_ of anything like that. I said those things because I meant them and you needed to know. Everything that happened yesterday only made me realize that I can’t be scared of it anymore. Yesterday didn’t _cause_ it, it was just the catalyst.”

Ronan closed his eyes and tucked his face in the crook of where Adam’s neck met his shoulder. Adam felt Ronan’s eyelashes, his steady breaths as they ghosted over the delicate skin there, and Adam closed his eyes, too. He realized that for the first time in his life, he wasn’t scared of this. He was terrified for so long because of his father, what would happen if his father found out, and while he was still nervous about running into his father one day while they were out, he was no longer scared. He knew Ronan would protect him, and he would protect Ronan. Ronan was more important to him than anything else.

“Will you promise me something?” Adam whispered. Ronan didn’t say anything, but Adam knew he was listening. “Please don’t do anything like yesterday again. Just come to me and we can talk about it, or not talk, or whatever, and you know I won’t judge you for it. Just don’t hurt yourself.”


End file.
